Don't Look Here!

The blog is over here now: http://laserlikeprecision.blogspot.com/

I needed to make some changes and I decided a new blog was in order...I may lose a few readers...which at this point I think I had 8 regulars...so a full 3/4 of my readership will most likely be gone....yet unemployment still hovers at like 10%...so in terms of blunders, numbers-wise I have made a more egregious error by not posting for 3 months and then moving the blog than George Bush has done with our country...wow.
So I'm now re-assembling my self esteem and telling you why the blog has moved.
I went from my life being better than it had been in years, it's morning in America and my futures so bright I gotta' wear shades...to worse than it's been in a long while.

I wanted to give myself and the blog a fresh start. I want to vary the writing a little bit be a little more reflective and thoughtful, maybe add some new elements ie: food writing, music writing...less cursing perhaps?
I am going to allow myself shorter posts...I was never obsessed with word counts per se but I did try to make sure they were more substantive...I"m not going to focus so much on that anymore.

Anyway, as I said, I'm going to try to retain at least 2 of my regulars ..and since I talk to both of them at least once a week I think that's an attainable goal...

Gaydar

Becca and I attended an information session for a Phd program she really wants to enroll in at the Morgridge College of Education.
One of the administrators that we got to sit down and talk to was a guy I would guess to be in his mid 40's. Nice understated suit, stylish glasses...and a nose stud.
A dainty little little nose stud like a woman would wear.
I didn't see it at first because I was hypnotized by a bronze bust very near the table we were sitting at. It was a bust of the man that the building we were sitting in was named after. Not terribly notable except for the fact that the man had an owl coming out of his right shoulder. Not on, coming out of .
"What the hell kind of half owl/half man hybrid had they named this building after?" I kept wondering.
So, it wasn't until the light caught the stud in his nose that I noticed it. The strange thing was I wasn't getting any kind of gay vibe at from him. Weird.
Later we were in the Coach store and I brought it up.
Becca said " I just think he's very Metro. I have good Gaydar and he wasn't setting it off."
I said, "I do too, and you're right no bells were going off."
Just then a smartly dressed young man flounced over and asked if we needed any help. I leaned close to Becca's ear and said under my breath, " beep...beep...beep"
I have to give it to her she held it together pretty well until he left then she turned to me, "Right! That guy was setting it off!"
Later that night we went out to dinner and the nice young man serving us was obviously gay as well. While he was talking to us I stared at Becca and watched her battle to keep from smiling too widely. I was really tempted to beep at her again...but it would have been odd behavior ...ok, I know I'm known for odd behavior at times, but frankly I didn't want to make the kid uncomfortable. He was, after all, about to bring me plates of food.
After he left she wheeled on me,
" All I could hear while he was talking was your voice in my head saying 'beep...beep..beep'. "



ps: I never found out why the man had an owl coming out of his arm. I went over and read the little sign under the bust and it said, "The bust of William Driscoll has been moved to another location until further notice" When clearly it had not.
pps: further study reveals he was a zoologist ...which still doesn't explain an owl coming out of his fucking shoulder instead of being on it!

The new Era

The day after the election I had a customer buying a phone. The price was $100 minus a $50 mail in rebate.
I told her about the rebate but as always happens only the lowest number registered.
(when I say "we ordered your phone and it will be here 3 to 5 business days" the customer hears "I swear on my sweet grammy's grave that your phone will be here in no more than 3 days, regardless of holidays, weekends, fires, floods and tornadoes)
So she is staring at this receipt, pen poised, and she just can't bring herself to sign it because for the life of her she can't figure out how $50 became $107.35 after taxes.
I finally decide to help her out, I say matter of factly
"Taxes"
She looks up at me with a question on her face.
I say, "they warned us Obama would raise our taxes....but 100% seems a bit much to me."
She looked stunned for just a second and then I said, "the mail in rebate?"
She and her daughter cracked up.

I have found in sales if you can scare the crap out of the customers with something like 100% taxes and then reassure them it's just a mail in rebate that you may or may not get in 6 months it makes for a much better customer service experience.

Signs That Your Campaign Might be In Trouble

ok.....if a former Secretary Of State...
and National Security Advisor...
and Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff.....
who is a member of your party endorses your opponent?
Your campaign might be in trouble.
If your most recent endorsement is....lets see...oh, I know:
Kurt Schilling!
You are in even worse trouble than I thought.
That's deep shit right there.
Think about that, on one side you have Colin Powell backing Obama...you heard of Colin Powell, right?
Um, lemme' see.....MBA from George Washington University, served 2 terms in Vietnam, rose to the rank of 4 Star General blah, blah, blah...plus all that Secretary Of State horseshit I mentioned earlier....
On the other side, Kurt Schilling....lets see....3 world series rings, lifetime era of 3.46, 2001 World series mvp and a 98 MPH (in his prime) fastball. Of course his only experience in political matters up to this point is limited to testifying in front of congress in 2005 about steroid use in baseball.

In terms of having the faith of powerful, influential people behind you....
I'm going to go with the guy with all the "experience" in politics versus the guy that you would kill to have on your company softball team.

Enh....maybe I'm biased...

Guess What I Did On My Day Off...

Ok take a flying leap at what I did with my day off yesterday.
G'head, I'll wait.
(at this point you should hear the theme music for Final Jeopardy in your head....or maybe even hum it to yourself)

If you guessed:
-did laundry
-went to the library
-worked out
-blogged
-wandered aimlessly around Whole Foods, listening to my music, chatting up the pretty woman in the cheese/produce/seafood department. Oh, and the guy behind the meat counter...but I couldn't accurately tell you if he's all that good looking or not...that's just not my thing. I am relentlessly hetero despite my metrosexual facade . Ask anybody.
-Subsequent to the Whole Foods trip cooked a needlessly elaborate meal considering it was for only one person

Any one of these (or perhaps several of these) would have been a good guess.
However, that's not what I'm talking about.
I voted.
I partook of the early voting process.
Heartily, I may add.
I voted long. I voted hard. I voted deep.
I voted the shit out of it.

The thing is, I am a political junkie. I can tell you, at great length, why I rated Reagan as one of my least favorite modern presidents until Bush came along. I am very much interested in the outcome of this campaign...and I wound up voting completely by accident.
I didn't set out to vote.
It's actually kind of weird.
I was at the mall. I fucking hate the mall. I was going to say I avoid it like the plague...but who even knows what the hell the plague is? I avoid the mall like herpes. Like kicks to the balls. Like tainted shellfish.....like taints...(ok that last bit may have been borderline inappropriate...taints..)
But...You get the picture?
So, for some reason I decided I wanted to see if I could find a protective case for my cell phone.
(they did have one, it was stupid-expensive considering it probably cost next to nothing to make and I passed on it.)
Anyway.I have developed a defense mechanism for places like the mall or Walmart.
I listen to mp3s on my phone and pretend I am in a video in which a cool, good looking, well dressed guy in his 30's ironically walks amongst the uneducated-unwashed masses.....
and if you think this is snobby and rude? Then you're stupid and you probably smell gross...I'm just saying...
So there I am, walking in the mall, trying not to hate or punch anyone and I round a corner and there it is, a polling place. It was like I turned a corner and I found a hot chick giving out free CD's and sushi and bourbon . I slowed down my pace as I approached, trying to take it all in ....to make sure I really was seeing what I was seeing.
I walked up to the nice old lady and she said, "are you here to vote?"
I was like a little kid, "Can I?!"
She broke down the rules (have a valid I.D. be registered etc...) and I got in line and voted like a madman.
I won't go into all the ins and outs.
But! If Obama becomes president, I am totally taking credit. I voted for him waaaay before all you fuckers and y'all just copied me.
I won't even get into all the reasons why you should vote for Obama.
The Real News (found on most channels) tells you why...and the Fixed News...or Fake news...or..umm Fox "News" tells you why by talking all kinds of retarded bullshit...and I apologize to Retards for saying that. Even Retards think "umm what you are saying? ....Fox "news" makes no fucking sense. And I'm a retard!" (you should hear a super fake, over the top, cliche, retard voice when you read that.)
(again...sorry to Retards. And that includes you Dubya.)
So.
I voted for Obama.
Duh.
But the other thing on the ballot that I voted for...or actually against as the case may be...
Hang on....
Here in Colorado they have a ballot initiative for a constitutional amendment to make it official that "life begins at the moment of conception" And....AND.!!..that little lump of egg and sperm, the millisecond that it bifurcates into 2 cells, it has the same rights as you and I.
Think about that. The fraction of a second that it takes.....the moment of fertilization...I'm near to speechless...what the fuck?
Is a seedling the same as a 100 year old oak?
Fuck no.
Come on.
A 2 celled organism, that may at some point become a human, has the same rights as you and I?
Get the fuck out of here.
I will barely concede that my 13 year old son has the same rights as me. And god only knows how many cells He has...he's going through puberty for fuck's sake...

So.
I voted for Obama. And I voted against giving double-celled organisms driving privileges, voting rights and the ability to supersize their happy meal.
And anybody that doesn't like it? Well, I challenge you and that ...that...collection of cells to a fight...you and the cells versus me and ...I don't know...um..a cage fighter? I mean, if you really think that is a human being with full human rights and not just a small assortment of cells...well then lets the 4 of us have a fight and you see how much back up those cells are versus my cage fighter...and I'll even let you pick...you can pick a guy that is 0-40 ...
40 fights 40 losses....
I could probably beat that fucker.... even with my separated shoulder (on account of spending so much time in that ditch?Remember?)
and I will still take that Human Being over your little pile of cells.

I'm.
Just.
Saying.

Hunh!

I like when a comment taken out of context is funny.
I'm about to watch a boxing match and the announcer says, "it's the punch you don't see coming that knocks you out ...now lets talk to Larry Merchant who you can always see coming"
WTF? You can always see Larry Merchat cumming?
Really?
Then later in the fight they are trying to explain that the key to this fight is that the fighter that hits first is doing better because there is no counter-punching going on.
The other announcer said, " if Mosely gets off first he looks better, if Cotto gets off first he looks better"
Again,
WTF?
I was starting to think they had a bet going on Like in "Super Troopers" when the one trooper bets the other trooper he can't say "meow" a certain number of times and so the trooper says to the couple he has pulled over "meow listen here" amongst other things.
I think they got this bet going that they couldn't say on the air something that would imply the fighter is having an orgasim.
Right as I had this thought Lamply said, "Mosely is impressive at this age. He just keeps coming and coming and coming"

Oh shit now it's a three way tie!

Suddenly I was more interested in what the announcers were saying than the fight itself. What kind of innuendo was going to be dropped next?!
For the next few rounds it just punching and stuff.
ZZZzzzzzz Boooring.
I thought it was going to end in a three way tie until Cottos mouthpiece was knocked out and Jim Lampley seized the opportunity by saying, "wow, that left his mouth like Paris Hilton spitting out a wad in the back of the limo!"

A little artless and obvious but I gave him the win nonetheless.

(that last bit may have been embellished)

Censoship People has reared its Ugly head.

I knew this day would come.
Well it's official, I have been censored on the internet.
You know what that means?

The Terrorists Have Already Won.

I can try to go to the mall and buy a bunch of useless crap I don't need like President Jackass has suggested....but it might be too little, too late. I'm afraid they really may have already won and there is nothing a vibrating leather chair can do about it.

I should explain. Last night I left a comment on a blog. That the blog owner refused to post.
It was my usual well thought out, expletive laden diatribe that only tangentially had anything to do with the the actual subject.
In essence I said "fuck Doulas."
Every doula I know is a lying douche.
Of course the one I know happens to be my ex wife and while I will grant the two facts about her: 1) shes a doula and 2) she's a lying douche may be independent of each other and doulas as a group might be good people....I'm just saying all the ones I know are bad people, ok?

But the censorship has already begun. The terrorist have already won and soon we'll all be sporting burkhas....of course this is still america so we'll have burkhas that say Phat Farm or Abercrombie on them...but that's not the point.....

Today Was A Good Day ( yes I am quoting an Ice Cube song)

It was a good day today because Chris revealed himself to be a pirate.

I should back up a little.
Chris is one of 2 new guys (the other is Marvin, a black dude who talks with a bit of a lisp so to me he always sounds like Tim Meadows character The Ladies Man...so of course I like Marvin.)
Chris is black too...but he's one of the whitest black dudes I've ever met.
But of course I'm too white to point that out...fortunately Hamlet has had a great time of pointing out how 'white' Chris is.
Oh....have I ever mentioned Hamlet? First, this is not a pseudonym. Hamlet is a Dominican guy from New York. Hamlet looks,acts, dresses and talks like the absolute cliche of what you think a Dominican guy from New York should be. I think he's awesome because he says thing to me like "watchoo need nigga?" if I'm trying to ask him a question. Plus? He's a Dominican guy from New York named Hamlet!
Don't even try to deny it; that's awesome.
So, to give you an example of how Hamlet points out that Chris is white despite the color of his skin, yesterday I happened to walk into the office and Hamlet , Chris and a couple of other people were there...I walk in as Hamlet says to Chris, "c'mon muthafucka, name one other member of the Wu Tang Clan besides Inspecta Deck" and Chris says, "umm lets see, there's Inspecta Deck..." and Hamlet turns to me, points and says, "Nigga, name somebody from Wu Tang."
I say, without hesitating, "The Rza, The Gza, Old Dirty Bastard, Ghostface Killa, Method Man..." He interrupts me looks at Chris, "see bitch, Michael blacker than you!"
Then he turns to me and says, "knowin' Wu Tang don't make you black......you know Bobby Digital?"
To which I respond, "I'm vegetarian, bitch, I don't eat the beef. Wait 'till you go to sleep I'll pull ya' teef."
Which is a Bobby Digital lyric....Bobby Digital is the alter ego of The Rza....but I digress.

So. I'm blacker than Chris...who is technically black... ( one time he mentioned his wife is black and somebody said "a mixed marriage? Nice!")

What the fuck was I talking about?
Oh yeah, Chris is a pirate.
He comes in wearing a belt that has a skull and cross bones belt buckle.
I'm serious.
So of course we all spend most of the day making great sport of his piratical belt buckle. We start sentences with 'argh' and 'avast'
(holy shit, spell check was fine with the word "piratical"
...anyway)
But, the best part of all the fun we had at his expense?
(and believe me, we had great fun. At one point he asked me, "what am I supposed to do?" I said, "I don't know, invent a time machine and go back to the moment in which you put that fucking belt on and then stop yourself?....Or at the very least, maybe buy a mirror for the house?")
Ok. He was about to leave. Marvin had a very cute young customer. I asked her if she had ever seen a real pirate. She , of course, was all "what the fuck?"
I summon Chris over, he shows her the belt buckle and she says....
wait for it...
"where'd you get that, Hot Topic?"
Yes!
Nice!
I couldn't help myself, I high-fived her.
Those who know me know I'm not a high-fiven' kind of guy...but that was exceptional.
She did not pause, did not think about it.
"Where'd you get that, Hot Topic?"
I looked at the woman who came with her, I said, "M'am, is this your daughter?" she said yes and I said, (with absolute sincerity) "you must be so proud."

When I'm President King part XXIV

I may have written about this before, if so I apologize to those have heard it already....
but when I'm President King the advertised sale price of grocery items (specifically the sale tags at the supermarket) will first have multi unit sale prices that are divisible by 2.
Ie: 2 for $10. I'm not going to even make them put a single unit price on something, I'm a fair guy. But we can all easily tell that the price per unit is $5. Even 4 for $5 is ok, (that's a buck and a quarter, easy enough) But when I see 7 for $13 or some random retarded fraction, fuck that. I shouldn't be forced to do algebra to find out how much my gaddamn cottage cheese is costing me. (sorry to those of my readers who may be retarded, nothing personal)
What brings this on tonight?
I was in the store and I passed through the chip eisle and saw that a brand of chips I happen to like was on sale....2 for the price of 1. The price of one being $3.98 a bag...so roughly $2, not a bad price I guess and easy enough to figure out how much it's going to cost me.
So....I happen to cruise by the "fresh" salsas (the kind they keep refrigerated) they have a brand I kind of like, which is unusual in this Wonderbread town, and it's on sale....3 for $5...damnit!...that's what, $1.67 each? Not bad I guess...then I happen to look at the salsa next to it....it looks kind of good too...but it is some other random fucking fraction.
Hmm...
So I think I'll get a little more clarity on this by looking at the fine print that
gives the price per ___...
Not much help there because the first tag says __ $ per ounce, the one next to it __$ per pound and the third brand? __$ per quart.
Ok, I was almost fine until I saw that last one.
Per quart? Really?
Why give me the price per quart? Who knows what a quart of salsa is? Who buys a quart of fucking salsa for personal consumption? What the hell am I doing with that much salsa...drinking it? Pouring it on cereal for fucks sake?
It is absurd to try to compare these 3 measurements. They may as well try to sell it to me in seconds per hectare. How the fuck am I supposed to compare a weight measurement with a volume measurement? Why not throw the per square inch price? Hey, why not go fucking metric with this bitch?! 3 euros per kilometer or some shit....
What the hell?
Nobody ever buys a fucking quart of salsa for personal consumption. What does a quart of salsa even look like?
What really annoys me is the obsfucation.
Why do you have to try to confuse me as a consumer? How about giving me clear information that will let me make an informed choice, fuckers?
It's not just obsfucation, it's unnecessary...do they think we'll just get all flustered and buy 5 for the price of 9 or something?
When I'm President King you will be able to look at a block of cheese or whatever and say, "OK, this one costs eleven cents per pound more than the other, but it's a higher quality product"
Or the reverse, "fuck that, the shitty cheese is 8 cents more per pound than the good stuff?!"
Informed choice without trickery ...is that so unreasonable?
The whole fucking point of having a sale is to increase sales so why not let people feel good about their choice because they have made an informed decision instead of just muddying the water?
I got so annoyed trying to do the math on this shit that I decided to forget the whole thing.
I refuse to pay $43,000 centavos for 7/16 of a decaliter of store bought salsa, I'm not gonna' do it.

I do have to say though..on the way out I happened to catch an awesome deal, the service deli had eleventy-five shmears of 3/4 fat cream cheese (which is soooo much better than 1/2 fat) on 75/15's* of a bagel.
Toasted!

* I was going to throw in some pi and 'squared' type mathematics and shit....but this stupid laptop** doesn't have the keys for that sort of thing)
** I'm going to change the name of 'laptops' when I'm President King.
First: most of the time people do not have them on their laps when they are using them.
Second: 'laptop' sounds vaguely sexual..... which is soooo stupid because if you are using a laptop in a sexual way (Internet porn? Heard of it?Anyone? Oh right, it's just me.) then the last place you want that fucking thing is on your lap)
I'm just saying.

I was at the Dr.'s office and the 2 receptionists are having a conversation.
First receptionist: Are you sure it's not pronounced 'Focusia' ?
(as in focus-e-uh)
I assume they are talking about some new ADHD medication.
Second receptionist: I'm telling you, you're saying it wrong. Here lets ask him.
She points at me.
She hands me a piece of paper. It is a takeout menu.
She points to one of the sandwiches listed.
It comes on Focaccia.

PS: in case you are sitting there thinking "yeah, I'm not totally sure how it's pronounced myself" it's Fo-cash-uh...(middle syllable is an ah sound)

Breakfast with Cindy

My friend Cindy and I have a place that we really like for breakfast. It's a 2 hour round trip to get there, the hollandaise is that good. I'm not going to tell you the name of it because you will go there and the wait will be even longer.
Usually it's about an hour wait to get a table...actually we could probably have minimized the wait but we specified the patio.
The first time we went there we said just sit us wherever and we wound up with a lovely table triangulated by the kitchen, a table full of 8 screaming toddlers (maybe a lamaze class reunion?) and a woman with a devastating case of cankles which she tried to draw attention away from through the clever use of cleavage. It wasn't working. I couldn't take my eyes off the things. Seriously the woman should adopt a style of dress that involves boots, lots and lots of boots.
So this time we said we would wait for the patio...we got a nice table, shady, not near any cankles or babies...but it was right by the door. Which is not that big of a deal except that it was an automatic door so it was kind of like having breakfast right next to the front door of a supermarket. But I'm not complaining. I think that pretty soon we will have it narrowed down to one perfect table and we will have to wait an hour and a half for it...
While I was waiting in line to put our name on the list a guy sort of scooted past me said excuse me ....and then stood in front of me.
I paused for a second and then my "Oh Hell No!" response kicked in. I said "Um excuse me?" The guy turned around and I said "Please tell me you did not just..." and then I made a little circular motion with my finger to indicate his little swooping in front of me maneuver.
Yes I did make a quick little mental calculation that he was wearing trendy glasses and a nice sweater I imagine you could get at Banana Republic (and not the outlet either) and was slight of frame and therefore was highly unlikely to be able to kick my ass.
But in my defense just today a big black guy that I work with kept repeatedly saying he was going to punch me, to which I finally replied , "look either punch me in the fucking face, or shut up about it" So I'll shoot my mouth off whenever it's appropriate.
Anyway, the guy says, "Um, actually I'm just getting to the coffee pot."
He points and, whaddya know, there is a coffee pot right next to the nice young lady taking table reservations! I apologize to him and the nice young lady takes my reservation.
I go outside and Cindy is sitting on a bench and the Trendy Guy and his girlfriend are standing Right Next To her. super. The guy gives me a nod and we both smile. As I sit down Cindy gives me a quizzical look and I say loudly enough for the couple to hear, "oh that's the guy I tried to pick a fight with in there"
He says he says " Yeah we were going to totally fight but then we worked it out" I explained what happened and she gave me the look that says, "Michael, you're a dumbass"
So while we were waiting for our table Cindy and I did what we normally do in situations like this.
We start talking shit about people.
For example Cindy says to me "have you ever seen cankles on man?" and honest to God the mans ankles looked like a couple of monster burritos. They were the color of flour tortillas, and they went straight down into his sandals without any tapering whatsoever.
(What is with this place and the fucking cankles anyway?)
Then a guy walks up...and his hair was dyed....have you seen these guys that their hair is going grey so they have died their hair .....and you're not really clear what color it was supposed to be?
Blackish, brownish, reddish...no fucking idea what color you meant but that ain't it dude.
He's wearing....I don't even know how to properly describe the shirt...satiny,thin white and black lines in undulating repeating patterns meant to create a 3-d effect of movement and depth at the same time.
Over this he is wearing a herringbone jacket. The effect gives me an instant migraine. I make a sort of woozy face and say to Cindy, "I think I have vertigo".
She glances over my shoulder and says "What color is his hair?"
Then, we both catch sight of this woman at the same time.
She is 50 to 70 something. Hard to tell because she has clearly had extensive cosmetic surgery. I have seen these women on tv but never one in it's natural habitat. They look like an alien trying to pass as human.
As if some other life form has been watching our tv shows and has a skewed idea of what we like a woman to look like.
I can try to describe the various plastic surgery horrors. The elfin appearance from the face lift, the enormous, inappropriate boobs, the Michael Jackson nose...
Where do I start? You know what, I kind of buried the lead.
Her lips.
They looked like her face had crashed and deployed the airbags. They looked like somebody had sewn a couple of bicycle inner tubes on her face and then applied lipstick. They looked so rubbery and fake that you got the impression that even after she stopped talking they would keep moving all wubbly-jubbly for a few seconds.
Cindy supposed that when she ate, to get the food past her lips, it would appear kind of like a pelican throwing food up a little and then sort of gobbling it down into her throat...I have to say Cindy does a pretty damn good pelican.
We watched as family member after family member said goodbye and with looks of horror had the ginormous fish lips applied to their cheeks.
The absolute best was a guy in his 20's, looked like a grandson maybe. He tried to hug her without actually having Grandma's huge rack touch him. It was like he was trying to apply some sort of force field with his arms around her without touching her. He did that exaggerated ass-out hug thing. You had to feel for the kid. Here he is trying to have a nice family breakfast and he has to at the last minute do evasive manoeuvres to avoid Geriatric Triple-D's.

Before you think I'm being mean to the woman, I'm not the jerk here, ok?
You want to know who the asshole is? The plastic surgeon who didn't have the temerity to say "Hey, look, you're 5 foot 2 and you weigh 115 lbs. soaking wet...maybe Triple D is not the way to go?" Or the surgeon could have said, "I know you want fuller lips...but normally we inject only 1 to 3 cc's of collagen...7 cc's seems excessive." Or perhaps, "look I can only stretch the skin of your face so much before your ears meet in the back of your head and you look like an elf."
Or maybe the husband who kept paying for it and encouraging her?
Not me.

But fuck all that.
The Dutch apple pancake was phenomenal and the eggs benedict perfection. Cindy was charming and funny and beautiful. The weather was ideal and we sang "There's No-one Like You" by the Scorpions at the top of our lungs on the way home and it was a pretty damn good day.

Skip down one post I got one out of order

I somehow posted one out of order. Skip down one....